Any good "duo" character builds?

[PangolinPie]

So...me and my best friend recently got invited to be involved in a D&D campaign. It seems like for ever either I've been the GM or he has and we've never gotten the chance to play alongside each other in someone else's game for a change. We want to play a pair of characters who have a shared history and possibly abilities that synergize well together...

So I want to know are their any good builds that work well specifically as a pair of characters working off of each others strengths and abilities? It could be a pair of martial fighters, one buffer and a tank, etc...

[Val666]

One of you play a Cleric 4/Crusader 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 10/Contemplative 5.
The other play a Wu Jen 5/Crusader 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 1/Spellsword 1/Jade Phoenix Mage +9/Archmage 3

Both are powerful, flavorful and wonderful. Be ingame brothers or something like that. Both martial disciples gishes.

[D4rkh0rus]

I am pretty sure there was a build where 2 took the same class levels and stuff, and used an ability to hide the other to hide each other and ambush and stuff...

[thethird]

I'm partially fond of a minionmancer and a buffer. Personally I would love to play a dread necromancer, and a Bonesinger Bard (created by the dread necromancer) who has the requiem feat.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It really depends on the level range you're playing at. Few games play from 1st to 20th, and if you're starting play higher than 1st level you can consider level-adjusted races.

In the low to mid levels, one of your best options is fear effects (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0). They stack to cause an escalated condition (Shaken to Frightened to Panicked), so multiple characters with fear effects can easily crowd-control most non-mindless encounters until the later levels. Two Savage Bards with Inspire Awe, Dreadful Wrath, Haunting Melody, and Wild Cohort would be amazing at the lower levels. Something like Bard 8/ Dread Witch 1/ Nightmare Spinner 1/ Sublime Chord 2/ Dread Witch 4/ Nightmare Spinner 4 would still be viable in the highest levels.

In the mid to high level and beyond, you want some strong spellcasters for sure with only two PCs. A pair of Druids is second to none, considering crowd control spells, greenbound summons, wild shape, animal companions, summon elemental to Nodwick the traps, you shouldn't find many situations that your two characters can't handle.

[Forrestfire]

For some fairly high-power options, pairing Artificers together lets them share their prerequisites to make bigger items (among other things), pairing Wizards together lets you copy spells you know (and getting a Boccob's Blessed Book (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#blessedBook) each essentially doubles each of your spells known, since it copies for no cost), pairing Erudites together does something similar, but costs exp.

I've always been a fan of a duo where one person is a buffy combat cleric or martial initiator or something and the other one is a Fiend of Possession. Pair as a weapon and combatant Soul Eater-style with your +15ish weapon and go to town, especially of the Fiend of Possession is something with powers that work from inside a weapon, like psionics.

[Zanos]

The Wish and The Word (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Bu ild)) are alright, I guess.

don't do this

[Doc_Maynot]

You could play a Dvati and each play one of the twins (issue, you'd have to agree on magic items, feats, and class levels) but it could work out quite well.
Dvati Cobra Strike Monk 1/Fighter 2/Warblade X/Swordsage X/Master of Nine 5, maybe? One of you use the Swordsage stuff, the other the Warblade. Using each others manuevers if need be.

[Rebel7284]

Two psions can recharge each other after each battle with a strict DM that doesn't like bestow power use on yourself.

[WhamBamSam]

Shadowpouncer Builds using Benign Transposition could be pretty snazzy, but they won't come fully online until the low to mid teen levels.

With coordinated characters you could construct ways to pull off infinite out-of-combat healing, such as playing a Mechanatrix when your ally has a spammable/recharging lightning breath (say if he's a DFA) or playing a Necropolitan/taking Tomb-Tainted Soul if your ally has spammable negative energy damage (say if he's a Dread Necromancer).

Actually, Dread Necromancer and Song of the White Raven Bard/Warblade can be crazy good. Both of you take Tomb-Tainted Soul as your first level feat. The bard then takes the Requiem feat to apply bardic music to the undead hordes and does DFI stuff beyond that, while hanging out in the Leading the Charge stance. The Dread Necro does his usual minionmancy thing. Use your high Charisma scores to play off of each other in social encounters, and try as hard as you can to goad the enemy into asking "you and what army?"

[Raezeman]

how about both exactly the same class levels, but focused on different aspects, like specialised wizards with complete different spell lists, or clerics that are focussed on melee/spells.
Or how about the same base class, but going for different prestige classes.
Or different base classes that go for the same prestige class (if appropriate for both classes).
Or just 2 different builds, but with a similar theme, like a sorcerer-stormcaster and a bard-stormsinger.

[Lemonblu]

I was part of a campaign where two of the guys made brothers, or rather half-brothers.
One Half-Orc fighter-type build, the other a Half-Elf rogue-type build. Their father was human, their mothers were Orc and Elf respectively.

The Half-Orc's immense strength went towards grappling, and the Half-Elf would sneak attack grappled opponents after they lost their Dex bonus to AC. Fun combo to watch :)

[Amphetryon]

Halfling Warlock who emphasizes a sniping concept, carried in the backpack of a strength-based Warblade in Spiked/Bladed Armor who emphasizes a Bullrush concept. This is also known as the 'Master Blaster' duo.

[A.A.King]

How about two melee guys who focus on flanking?

Stuff like the Barbarian ACF Spiritual Wolf Totem from Unearthed Arcana and the Vexing Flanker feat from Player's Handbook II increase the attack bonus you'll both get from flanking.
If both of you also take either Adaptable Flanker feat from Player's Handbook II or the Double Team feat from the Dragon Compendium then you can stand next to each other and be treated as flanking someone you can both attack.
Then, if you can do combat while fighting next to each other, you can look into feats like Shield Wall and/or Phalanx Fighting which will increase your Shield AC if you stand next to each other

Bonus points if you are both Halflings using the Swarmfighting feat so that you can stand in the same square.

[Gwendol]

You could make a duo of devoted defenders, probably building on a foundation of ToB classes (Crusader + Swordsage perhaps). Using reach weapons they could become a pair of very frustrating opponents.

[zilonox]

Clearly, one of you needs to be a goliath bloodstorm blade with Fling Ally and the other needs to be a halfling [whatever]. This way the goliath can fling the halfling up to 75 feet away, the halfling can do whatever he wants to do, then he returns to the goliath just before the goliath's next turn (fastball special!!!).

Note: This may require some bribing convincing of the DM...

:smallwink:

[Callin]

2 Idiot Crusaders using White Raven Tactics to have infinite turns.

[Segev]

A Batman/"god" wizard and a Warblade (or maybe a Swordsage) who focuses on massive numbers of hits for his combat style and gears his equipment to utilize buff spells from the wizard and to assist the wizard in staying alive at low levels.

White Raven tools for this build include White Raven Tactics to give the wizard an extra turn in round 1 of combat, the various "make my allies hit more/harder" maneuvers to be used in conjunction with mass summons called in by the wizard, and the like. Desert Wind, Tiger Claw, and even Iron Heart are all good for making more attack rolls or doing more damage per attack, as well.

The Wizard also makes liberal use of Heroics in order to provide additional maneuvers as the situation requires to his friend. As well as turning his minions' tactics over to said ally (whether they're summoned monsters, animated dead, simulacra, or what-have-you).

The Wizard may also wish to invest in an Improved Familiar, both for the touch delivery (in case he needs to get a spell onto his Warblade without getting too close) and to give the Warblade another ally to bolster.

The Warblade invests his own wealth into pearls of power to ensure he has plenty of copies of his buffs from his wizard buddy. It ultimately will save him some cash overall as he won't need so many permanent magic items.


Now, the trouble with this is that htere's nothing explicitly linking the wizard to the warblade, mechanically; other PCs may wish the wizard to equally buff them. THis is investing a lot of the wizard's power in making the Warblade more effective.

But it DOES make for a frightening combat combo. Especially if you can find ways to build the Warblade to make use of the Wizard's more utility/esoteric spells.

(I have a Paladin who uses his friend's Unseen Servants as javelin-retrieval services, so he can have magic javelins that are useful more than once per combat.)

[PaucaTerrorem]

I played a duo with a friend once. We were "The Sword and The Board". He played the THF smash killer, I played the melee BFC. I would trip/bullrush/disarm while he killed all the kill-ables.

[XmonkTad]

I once played a Mychonid Druid Symbiont who lived on another PC (who was some sort of centaur). He died off pretty quickly (energy burst vs a bunch of dudes who would reflect any spell that didn't overcome their SR).

If I could do it again with a duo, I would probably have a DFI Bard/Charlatan/Evangelist paired with an Abjurant Champion Gish with deceptive spell.

[Arc_knight25]

Are you looking for Synergy? Flavour? Unbreakable combos?

Also what kind of campaign is it going to be? What monsters do you see yourself facing a lot of.

I personally would rather the Flavour.

The 1/2 brothers seems pretty interesting. That sounds like a fun interaction. We did that with a bunch of 1/2 elves once. Our father elf went around the country side leaving behind children and heart broken women that tried to "dispose of" their children. We all had major phobia's, corresponding to how our mother tried to due away with us.

Was great when we all go stuck in a dark cave with only one exit near the top. I was afraid of enclosed spaces, another was afraid of the dark, another was heights and the last was water. We all woke up in a cave captured by kobolds (we were level 1) The cave was dark so the one guy starts screaming in fear, then someone casts light and I notice that we are in a enclosed space and I begin to become maniac. Of course the only way out is through a tall shaft in the top of the room, and the one afraid of heights is the only one who can get up there. Good times was had by all.

How about a Rogue and Paladin, both going into their respective Shadowbane PrC's. You could tie in being Orphans and the X holy order took you both in and trained you.

Really you can do any combination of classes, its just the back ground that you need to match up to make the Rping more fun.

[Asteron]

You could be the Pinball Brothers (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3396411)...

[Warlocknthewind]

I like the combination of Factotum and Spelltheif. The Factotums ability to pick spells makes them a SA, which the Spelltheif can use infinitely at level 5.

Run them like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson on a case.

[RedMage125]

A few years back I was aboard the USS Ronald Regasn on 2011 deployment and had some Marine buddies interested in playing D&D.

We only had 2 players and the DM. DM said make level 10 characters. One guy made a Ranger, so I thought "Hmm...how can I compliment this and still bring what we're going to need to the table?" The Answer was simple, Level 10 Bard. Bard brings enough healing for 2 characters, has decent arcane ability, and best of all, both characters were stealthy so we could sneak though stuff together.

Regrettably, we only had 2 sessions before we found more players and ran a different game. I still think it was a good idea, though.

[Raezeman]

how about the combination of an enlightened fist (complete arcane) and a sacred fist (complete divine). They are both prestige classes that combine monk with either arcane of divine spellcasting. I don't know how optimised you want to be, as i do not think either build is as good as a complete caster build, but i am pretty sure they vastly improve the standard monk, and should be pretty fun to play.

The enlightened fist can even be more combined with abjurant champion. I encountered one of those in a campaign recently, and let me tell you, my strategy of dispelling his buffs didn't work so well with his quick-casting of a stronger than normal shield every round...

[Mcdt2]

For some reason I've the idea for the longest time about a pair of Changelings, one a Master of Many Forms, the other focusing on illusions (probably Shadowcraft Mage), and possibly one or both with Chameleon and/or Factotum levels. The two would be masters of infiltration, appearing as nearly any person they could want. An ancient wizard and his familiar, and ranger and her wolf companion, and so on. Obviously this would work best in an RP heavy campaign, and probably an urban one, presumably set in Eberron.

[Firechanter]

2 Idiot Crusaders using White Raven Tactics to have infinite turns.

It's not even necessary to use Idiot Crusaders. You can use a pair of Ruby Knight Vindicators for pretty much the same effect (provided you get Divine Impetus fixed to be triggered as Free Action once per turn, instead of Standard Action).

The routine looks like: WRT - Divine Impetus - Divine Recovery - WRT, rinse and repeat.

Of course this is gamebreakingly good.

For a more modest optimization level, especially in a game with limited splat access, I have made good experiences with a duo of a Cleric and Rogue. Bonus points if the Cleric is sneaky (not trivial but can be done).
Of course, the Rogue needn't be an actual Rogue; you can also use stuff like Factotum, Beguiler or Scout as base class, and garnish with PrCs like Assassin/Avenger or Chameleon.

[Wolfsraine]

One of you needs to be a kukri wielding disciple of dispater, 12-20 crit range, with butterfly sting. Anytime you confirm a crit you can choose to deal regular damage and bestow the crit to the next ally that hits that target.

The other then needs to be some ******* on a mount with all the charging bull**** and a giant 2 hander.

[Firechanter]

One of you needs to be a kukri wielding disciple of dispater, 12-20 crit range, with butterfly sting.

Note that Disciple of Dispater is 3.0 material, and while it hasn't been updated, threat range stacking generally doesn't work anymore in 3.5, so they probably don't want to keep that triple threat range in the game either.

But for a 3.0 game, that's a pretty nifty combo, especially since Iron Power explicity stacks with Improved Critical so you could get 9-12.

For the best of both worlds, combine with a bit of Warblade for the Blood In The Water stance.

[Talya]

Bard with Doomspeak and any spellcaster using Save-or-you're-fracked spells immediately afterward works well.

[KorbeltheReader]

Wizard and druid are two great tastes that taste great together. You've got the buffer/minionmancer thing going on in both directions, throwing area effect damage into entangles/solid fogs/black tentacles, access to the majority of the best spells, and two characters that can each fulfill any role. Plus between them you've actually got 3-4 discrete characters including the animal companion and, possibly, a familiar.

[Telonius]

A Rogue and a Ranger with Distracting Attack would make a nice combination, for a lower-powered group.

[Bloodgruve]

I am pretty sure there was a build where 2 took the same class levels and stuff, and used an ability to hide the other to hide each other and ambush and stuff...

Shadowdancer pairs can HiPS off of each other IIRC.

[TandemChelipeds]

I was part of a campaign where two of the guys made brothers, or rather half-brothers.
One Half-Orc fighter-type build, the other a Half-Elf rogue-type build. Their father was human, their mothers were Orc and Elf respectively.

The Half-Orc's immense strength went towards grappling, and the Half-Elf would sneak attack grappled opponents after they lost their Dex bonus to AC. Fun combo to watch :)

YES. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziXpIPAhD4) DO IT DO IT DO IT

[jiriku]

Psions can share each other's powers when they touch. If one of you is a shaper and knows the metamorphisis power, you can touch hands, then shout "Wonder Twin powers activate!" as you both change form.